Conventionally, a light bar provides a visual feedback to the user for manually steering an agricultural vehicle such as a tractor, applicator, or harvester vehicle along a calculated path of travel. In addition to providing vehicle guidance for manually steering the vehicle on the desired path, the integrated light bar indicator also provides feedback of the position of the vehicle relative to the calculated path of travel in an automated steering system.
Although lightbar systems vary, a lightbar display may be made of a single horizontal row of lights. The center light which may be a different color or shape than other lights indicates that the vehicle is tracking the correct path. If the vehicle deviates from this path, lights to one side or the other of the center light will activate. Generally, the lights indicate which way to steer the vehicle. Thus, if the vehicle is left of the desired path, lights to the right of center will activate to indicate to the operator that they should correct by steering right.
Thus, although lightbars are known there are various issues with their use. One problem relates to the complexity and number of different user displays and control to be used by an operator of an agricultural vehicle. Where a field computer is present in addition to the lightbars this may be problematic for an operator to both read the display of the field computer as well as the lightbar in addition to maintaining all necessary awareness associated with operating the vehicle. This problem may be heightened depending upon where the field computer is mounted and where the light bar is mounted. Therefore, despite the use of light bars, problems remain.